Halfway along, the corridor was amputated. A cliff: rags of carpet ripped away, sliced steel shining bright in the moonlight, the wash of the waves in the distance, 50 feet below.

She crouched down, in case anyone was looking up at the ship, but the seashore below was empty. Casey could see tracks in the mud, leading away from the Beauvallet. The fishing boat had gone.

Without speaking, they edged back along the corridor and into one of the cabins. It was small, this room: only a few feet spare around a dusty bed. The mirrored cupboards were at the foot of the bed again, but these mirrors had distorted in the damp, reflecting a twisted view of the room as Casey stared round.

Sliding doors had led out onto the balcony once, but the glass had been smashed long ago. Two beach chairs sat there incongruously in front of white steel railings. A blue hammock dangled gloomily, and the Tephi slumped in the distance.

Casey peered over the edge.

‘Maybe we should jump?’ she whispered. ‘The mud might be soft.’

‘You’d break your legs.’

Casey could hear movements in the ship. They would check the Emperor Suite first, she thought dully, then launch a proper search as soon as they realised all the girls had gone.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she said.

‘How?’

Silence. Casey’s head jerked up. ‘How would they evacuate this ship?’ she whispered.

She yanked open the fitted cupboard at the end of the bed. Clipped into the cupboard under a sheet of perspex was a neat piece of paper. The Beauvallet: How to evacuate, it announced. Casey scanned it quickly and turned to Ed, eyes gleaming in the dark.

‘Follow me,’ she hissed.

There was a creak from the double doors at the top of the corridor.

‘We’re too late,’ Ed whispered. ‘They’re coming.’

It sounded like several men, searching in a team. They could hear them moving quickly, throwing open the doors to the cabins one by one. After each door opened, there was a pause, just long enough to check the bathroom, behind the bed, in the cupboards. Then onwards.

‘There’s nowhere to hide in here.’ Casey’s eyes raced around the room. ‘Shit. Shit.’

‘Is there anything we can use for a weapon?’ Ed muttered. He was searching for any escape: a loose ceiling panel, access to the ventilation system, anything.

Casey’s eyes fell on the rotting hammock out on the balcony, and she leapt forward. ‘Quickly, Ed,’ she whispered.

Her hands shook as she untied the hammock from its attachments and knotted both ends to the lowest white railing. As soon as the hammock was tied there, she threw the bulk of the material out over the side of the ship.

‘Here.’ She climbed over the railings. ‘Come on.’